Republican Sen. Thom Tillis (N.C.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he has “concerns” about President Trump’s “odd” bid to seek $230 million in compensation from the Justice Department for what the president says were politically motivated prosecutions of him under former President Biden.
Tillis acknowledged that Trump may be entitled to some compensation if the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) investigations of him for inciting insurrection after the 2020 election and mishandling classified documents while out of office were improper.
But the North Carolina Republican called Trump’s efforts to win damages from the Justice Department “odd” at a time when the deputy attorney general who would need to sign off on a settlement is his former defense lawyer Todd Blanche.
“Unless it’s something that’s done in the normal course of business — and I don’t believe that it is — at the very least it’s horrible timing given that we’re in a shutdown,” Tillis told reporters Wednesday.
“I got a lot of optics concerns and I just don’t know if there’s precedent for it. There doesn’t seem to be,” he said.
Tillis said he doesn’t think Trump “should be treated any differently than anyone else who was a target” of wrongful prosecution.
He made his comments in response to a new report in The New York Times that Trump is demanding the Justice Department pay him $230 million in compensation for the federal investigations of him under Biden.
Trump submitted complaints against the Justice Department through an administrative claim process, and the first complaint was filed in 2023, according to the Times. A second complaint was filed in 2024.
Trump told the Times in a statement that he was “damaged very greatly” by the Justice Department’s investigations and pledged to give any compensation received to charity.
Trump acknowledged during a meeting with reporters in the Oval Office last week that the political optics of the matter were awkward.
“I have a lawsuit that was doing very well, and when I became president, I said, I’m sort of suing myself,” he said. “It sort of looks bad, I’m suing myself right?”
Blanche, Trump’s former personal defense lawyer, who is now the No. 2-ranking official at the Justice Department, would have the authority to sign off on a settlement with the president.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, called the potential payout a huge conflict of interest.
“I think it is a bizarre potential abuse. It’s really head spinning,” he said, noting that the Justice Department officials who would decide the matter are the president’s subordinates and former Trump attorneys.
“His subordinates, who were his personal lawyers and who he paid, are now the ones who are going to approve reimbursing him for what he paid them. It just reeks of conflict of interest,” Blumenthal said of Blanche.
Stanley Woodward Jr., the head of the Justice Department’s civil division, represented Trump’s co-defendant in the federal case on the president’s mishandling of classified documents.
